Major League Soccer is the goal for Toronto-based Silverdome group

File PhotoThe Pontiac Silverdome has been vacant since the Detroit Lions left after the 2001 NFL season.

The highest bidders in the private auction for the Pontiac Silverdome have been revealed to be a family-owned real estate investment group from Toronto. The price tag for the former home of the Detroit Lions and the 127 acres that surrounds it? $583,000. An amount that Pontiac mayor Clarence Phillips was not happy with.

"I'd be lying to you if I didn't tell you that I'm really disappointed
in the amount that we received," said Mayor Phillips.

The $583,000 is a far cry from the $20 million that Bloomfield Hills attorney H. Wallace Parker agreed to pay last year to turn the property into a family entertainment complex. However, that deal ultimately fell through.

On the bright side, the city is relieved from the $1.5 million annual burden of upkeep and maintenance for the historic stadium that has been vacant since the Lions left for Ford Field after the 2001 NFL season.

The goal of the un-named Toronto group is to bring Major League Soccer (MLS) to the Detroit Metro Area. According to Fred Leeb, Pontiac's state-appointed emergency financial manager, "Their primary intention is to continue to use the Silverdome as a place for sports and bring in men and women's soccer teams at the MLS level."

The highest level of professional soccer on the women's side is Women's Professional Soccer (WPS), which launched earlier this year and will include nine teams from across the country in 2010.

MLS, which kicked off in 1996, is a 15-team league that will add three more teams (Philadelphia, Portland, Vancouver) by 2011. On Monday, the topic of further expansion was covered in MLS commissioner Don Garber's State of the League address ahead of Sunday's MLS championship game in Seattle between the Los Angeles Galaxy and Real Salt Lake:

Detroit Free Press - Nov. 16: MLS commissioner Don Garber said Monday in his state of the league
address that he believes the league will eventually have 20 teams but
did not give a timetable. He was asked specifically about Detroit and
said he has had no talks with Detroit officials.

“Today, we
believe we are going to be a 20-team league,” Garber said in his
address. “What we think in 2020 or 2025, I can’t answer and won’t be
around to have to address. This is a big country, it’s the size of a
continent, and along with Canada, it gets even bigger.”

Garber
acknowledged there are ongoing talks with Montreal about becoming the
19th team, but there is not a timetable and there are no active
discussions regarding the 20th team.

The Free Press also confirmed that Dan Duggan, the owner and chairman of the Michigan Bucks, an amateur Premier Development League team that is based in Pontiac, is not involved in the new group of investors. In 2003, Duggan spearheaded a campaign to bring MLS to Detroit, but it fell short when an investor couldn't be found to help fund a soccer-specific stadium that the league requires for entry.